If You Love Me
by Axcent
Summary: Baby, if you love me, would you please, please, smile? Baby, if you love me, god dammit, grin.


To all my lovelies. Yes, that means _you. _

If You Love Me

It was in the summer, always the summer. When everything smelt like freedom and we could sit cross legged on the grass. It was Linda who started it. She was a social butterfly, liked wandering around, picking victims. Near was always playing with a puzzle and she would come up behind him with her tight little smile and then show her teeth and ask him a question she asked all of us too often.

"Wanna play?"

We were children, and we played. You played with equations and I played with the N64 in the common room. Linda found us like that, one year, when it was 35 degrees and we were inside. You'd usually abandon those black pants and fish out a pair of board shorts, and I'd just roll up my sleeves and pretend I wasn't burning. Linda would stroll in with her hair in ribbons, lighter with sun bleach, and she'd go up to Near first, but we'd all hear her question. You'd roll your eyes and continue with your pencil and I'd widen my eyes at the screen and move on to the next level.

Linda was a relentless girl. That's one of the things I've always hated about the gender. Can't fucking shut up. But she wasn't mean, so you never hit her more than once. She just liked the attention.

Near would say, in one tone, "No thank you." And tilt his head and let his emotionless eyes drift lazily backwards to rest on Linda's bouncy frame.

She'd protest at first, in her yellow dress, but Near never wanted to play.

You didn't either. Not with Linda, not ever. You were happy to sit next to me, both feet solidly on the ground, and I was happy to have you there. I wouldn't have had it any other way.

But, girls are relentless, and she'd turn to us and reveal more teeth and ask the same question, like we weren't ignoring her. "Wanna play?" And then she'd see my pout and notice the dip of your eyebrow, so she'd elaborate. "It'll be fun." Disbelief, more elaboration. "I promise."

Linda liked making promises almost as much as you did, Mello.

We never said yes, though, did we? One time, we went outside, and she had a little group and she was announcing in a voice like moss and breaking glass, that it was a game to test your "ability to stay calm under pressure." Those were her exact words. I listened carefully; I always do.

She would put everyone in a circle, and then she'd look them deep in the eyes, and someone who had never sat through her games would lean in to see what she was doing, thinking this was getting intense, and then she'd whisper, dramatically, like a true artist, "Baby… if you love me, will you please, please, smile?" And her eyelashes would flash and the person she was asking would tense their mouth, sit apathetically, or fall backwards in peals of laughter.

And then, when the element of surprise was over, no one would smile. No one would laugh. And this was my first lesson in how serious love is, how there's nothing to laugh or smile about when you get into feelings like that.

You had your hand on my shoulder when we observed Linda's game, and you snickered when she asked every person to smile, please, please, smile. I heard it and I smiled.

We stood there, didn't we? We just watched. Soon the game changed, soon we were observers of rock, paper, scissors; maybe graveyard. Sometimes, days after, you'd bring me back to that moment when we were there in the shadow of the Orphanage's massive exterior. You'd tell me how immature everyone who said yes to Linda's questions was.

You'd pick fun of the first person to smile widely at Linda as she leaned forward, bangs in her eyes, and I'd wonder if you hated love that much. Mello, I'd already read so far into it that a week later, when you'd forgotten, I would've believed you if you'd said you hated me, I would have cried if Linda proposed another round of games.

But fall was approaching and we had our last few warm days, and Linda never asked if we wanted to play. At 14, I wanted nothing more than to hear her say that, and I dreaded it with everything I was then; a lanky, geeky, bespectacled, red haired, anti-social number 3. I thought; if she asked, I would hardly be able to resist asking you to play with me. I would have become lanky, geeky, bespectacled, red haired, anti-social, and happy. Or fearfully depressed. It all depended on you. Oh, and I would have been gay.

But, Mello, I would have smiled every time you asked me to, because I reckoned I loved you. If the moth balls in my stomach and the heated cheeks were love, then I had fallen. I didn't know what love was, really, but I had my second lesson when the leaves were cracking on the ground underfoot.

You didn't play games, but you always said, "Hey, football's a sport, dipshit!" So you played that. And if I didn't want to play with you, that was okay. You never asked anyway. I watched from the window, usually, were it was warm. That was what I said. I always thought you were being suspicious of me, when you asked why I was such a shut in. So I'd always say I liked to be where it was warm. You'd shrug. You didn't care. I felt like my gut had left my stomach when you shrugged like that. I felt like I had undergone invasive surgery and had been put under heavy aesthetic. I felt like I couldn't describe how I felt if you gave me a million words. I liked watching you play where you wouldn't see my eyes following your movements. I liked feeling like I was immobile, with the breath in my throat and the emotions pushing on my chest, suffocating me.

For some reason, you left that soccer field and didn't come immediately back up to the room, and I twisted my mouth a little at the window and looked into the eyes of my nervously smiling reflection through my goggles. I felt like such a shut in. The field had cleared, but you'd left long before that.

I didn't hear the door open when I did; I was too busy looking outside. But then there you were, and you didn't look at me, so I said nothing. And then you left again, with a backpack over your shoulder, and I blinked.

"Spending the night somewhere else?" I asked, confused.

You nodded ascent, said, "I'll see you later," and I felt like such a left out shut in.

"Where? With who?" I asked the closed door, quietly. But you didn't say anything because you didn't hear. You were never a very good listener. I had my hands linked in front of me and I was looking at my feet while you were walking through the gates, because when I looked back to the window, back at my frowning reflection, you were walking down the street, and I was still in the room.

Usually, I slept deeply. I could've slept through anything. But that night was the first night I'd spent without you for years, and I couldn't close my eyes because I had to watch the door, I had to check the empty bed to see if it would magically become occupied.

I fell asleep anyway, eventually, because it wasn't a big deal. I didn't need to be next to you at all times, I didn't need you.

But, in the morning, you hadn't come back. And that was the next thing I learnt about love. Love hurts. It hurts so much. Roger had pulled me by the arm into his office, looked me in the eyes, with pity in his own, and he'd said, "Matt, I'm sorry. Mello no longer resides at this Orphanage."

Everyone always said you didn't feel any kinship with me. I was the one who followed you around, who was smitten. Everyone always said you tolerated me. I always thought they were wrong, that we were close. I thought sitting next to you meant I was special. The look in that old man's eyes told me how wrong I had been. He knew you never felt attached to me, and he knew I had been obsessed with you. He pitied how sad I was to have been abandoned, how the knife twisted deeper because you had just dropped me. No regret.

I was silent, I nodded. I swam in Roger's eyes because I had to wade in my distress. I had to drink it in, I had to embrace it. There was nothing funny about love, love was a terrible pain. I was never a good student, but I'd managed to learn that much.

Then Roger dismissed me in a kind voice and I left with my hands in my pockets. I wasn't even wearing shoes, I was barely dressed, in a t-shirt and pyjama bottoms, and here I was, thinking I should just follow you.

But you would hate that.

Late that summer, if someone had told me you hated me, I would have believed it. Early that fall, I already knew that much was true. I felt purposeless, and I thought I would never love again. It was all over for me, that day. First one in the rest of my life. What a terrible prospect. The rest of my life, with you out being happily without out me and me… here… just being.

A week later, I was sure you would have forgotten all about it. I was sure there were times when I just slipped your mind, when you were too busy to think of childhood friends. I was always bitter about it, for six straight days, I couldn't eat because Imy fork was a sword and I was stabbing the pain. And sometimes a rogue Linda would come try to make me feel better.

You were never on television, but I knew what you were doing, and I started rooting for Near, to spite you. But then I realised you wouldn't care, so I went back to hoping you'd take that throne as number 1 detective.

And Linda was relentless, a typical girl, the whole time I waded in my despair. She took up the position as my best friend and, one day, asked me, "Wanna play?"

The year went so fast, I didn't have time to dig out your board shorts and forget about pretending not to burn in my heavy jeans. I was on the couch, and I was alone. Near was in New York, you were in Los Angeles, I was fifteen, and I was sitting on a couch in a room in an Orphanage. I felt so left behind, as I twiddled the joystick on the controller of that old console.

I said yes. To Linda. I followed her outside with tears at the back of my retinas. I just couldn't get over you. I was so stupid.

There were several younger children who were sitting in wait, and I felt like I was hopelessly trying to relive the past. They smiled up at me, anxiously. I had changed. You wouldn't know about that. I had adopted my addiction, I was twitchy now, I was paler, I was in darker clothes; I was looking like I felt. The smaller ones were nervous of me, because I was always using a fork like a bloody sword.

Linda lent forward, she burnt the pupils of one of the children, and she said, "Baby, if you love me, would you please, please, smile?" The little girl was laughing before Linda had choked out half a word, and she was in theatrics, hand on her heart. She was entertaining these little kids, these orphans, who were born in the middle of a battle of morals. I felt like I didn't fit here, with Linda bouncing like a mother in training, laughing, smiling.

"Baby, if you…" But the first kid to try couldn't hold back his laughter. What about this game cracked them up so much? When I had looked on, next to you, when you were here, I'd found it all so depressing. They were enjoying themselves. My third lesson. Love is a joke. This one had been coming gradually for a long time; I'd only just seen it now. Love is a painful, very unfunny joke. The love you feel for others is a joke to them.

I don't know what stage I was in. It wasn't anger, more like resentment. It wasn't acceptance, even though I no longer cried myself to sleep. I hated everything about being alone here at Wammy's, but it wasn't because I hated you. No, stupid me wanted you by my side. I still wanted you with me. I missed you. Sometimes I still felt the fluttering when I thought about you. Sometimes I told myself it was a misunderstanding. Sometimes, I entertained the thought that you had left me here to protect me. I liked that. I loved it when you protected me.

"Baby, if you love me, please, please, smile!" One boy with floppy hair practically screamed, and I realised he was talking to me. It was my turn. I had once thought I would get you to ask this, thought I would smile softly, lazily, purposefully. Then you would smirk and push a strand of my hair behind my ear, because I kept it longer around my cheeks, just so you would be able to do that, and then you would kiss me. I would still be smiling when you pulled back, and you would say something sweet and I would smile wider and we'd be mutually in love.

This little kid grinned and watched me crunch my eyes so I wouldn't cry. I smiled slowly and everyone screamed at me about my loss, but Linda looked at me strangely. She approached me after, asked if I was sad for some reason, and I said no.

I wasn't sad for 'some reason.' I was sad because I'd learnt so much about love this year. I thought, I don't want to learn any more.

So, Mello, if you loved me, I always thought, you would have played the game with me. It was one of my personal games. I would say, "if Mello does this, he loves me." Stupid things. If you took the vanilla pudding because I told you to, you loved me. If you played Mario 64, you loved me. If you let me link arms with you, you loved me. If you sat on the grass in the summer winds and asked me to smile, you loved me. But you never did any of those things, so I'm telling you how I was beating myself up every day when we were together, and that you've freed me by leaving, because I couldn't stand being with you when you ate the chocolate pudding and hated video games and laughed at childishness.

I just couldn't bear it.


End file.
